l launderette – who the heavyweight champion boxer owes £120 for washing his kit – today revealed he used to give the millionaire financial advice when he was a penniless hopeful.
Muqeem Bakhtari, 32, known locally as Max, said ‘joker’ Joshua was a still regular at his Launderette, in Golders Green, north London, near the ex-council flat where the fighter still lives with his mother.
Mr Bakhtari told MailOnline: ‘He’s a very nice guy.
‘You’d think over time money and fame would change people – not him.
‘He comes And gives me a big high five and hugs me – he’s a big guy so he makes me feel short.
‘He comes in and eats the chocolates and I tell him “Anthony you’re training you can’t eat chocolates” but he says “I’m a big guy I need it.”‘
The 27-year-old’s victory over two-time world champion Wladimir Klitschko in front of 90,000 people at Wembley on Saturday has earned him a whopping £15million – but he has not forgotten his unpaid bill.
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Pictured is champion boxer Anthony Joshua at Launderette in Golders Green, London, with Tamkeen Bakhtari, seven – daughter of the shop’s owner
Muqeem Bakhtari, known locally as Max, said ‘joker’ Joshua was a still regular at his Launderette (pictured), in Golders Green, north London, near the ex-council flat where the fighter still lives with his mother
Anthony Joshua said his son ‘loves the shiner’, under his left eye, that he sustained in the fight. Pictured, Joshua holds the IBO, IBF and WBA world heavyweight titles
His mother 𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚢sat during the fight and was seen bringing his 18-month-old son home to see his father today, and Joshua said the boy loves the ‘shiner’ he sustained.
The gruelling fight with Wladimir Klitschko won him a £15m purse and he is now tipped to one day overshadow the £540m fortune of Floyd Mayweather
Asked at the post-fight press conference if he was ‘ready for those people outside the Launderette’ after his biggest win to date, Joshua said: ‘I’ve got to pay my debt there, number one. I’ve got a bill like that big (gesturing with his thumb and forefinger on his left hand). Hopefully he’ll swerve it.
‘I’m a people’s person, on the estate, there was loads of us anyway so it’s pretty chilled. Everyone in the arena, I probably know 20,000 of these people. It’s crazy, I’m a local boy. So it’s no different, it’s no problem.
‘As long as I’m not late for training I don’t mind the attention.’
Mr Bakhtari said Joshua had been a regular since before winning his Olympic gold medal at London 2012 and his family often stopped by to pick up his laundry.
The champion boxer also gets his tailoring done at the shop and treats the staff like his own family.
Mr Bakhtari added: ‘He comes in and treats us all like family. He always gives me a big hug and even calls our tailor ‘uncle’.
‘He is a joker – no his bill is nothing. He always jokes about it.
‘It sometimes ranges from a fiver to a £100. He has no time so he sends in his family members. It’s minimal. The tab is always open to him and his family members – they are lovely people.
Explaining how he helps the man mountain, he said: ‘We wash everything from his sock and underwear to the ropes he ties round his hands.
‘He does not let the gym go so he sometimes brings stuff in seven days a week.
‘Sometimes he leaves his kit in the back of his car for a few days and it’s smelly.’
He said he always pulls out the stops to make sure Anthony’s washing is done on time.
The mother of heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, Yeta Odusanya, 51, was pictured smiling proudly today, after he son’s stunning victory at Wembley Stadium
Adding: ‘I’ve pulled off some late nights for him.
‘He phones up saying he’s flying out tomorrow and he didn’t realise and he needs his stuff.’
Mr Bakhtari said washing the clothes of a boxing champion isn’t easy.
He said: ‘We look after his clothes extremely well.
‘We don’t want to shrink them.
‘He’s such a big boy anyway – he has to duck when he walks through the door.
‘We do it low heat because gym clothes do shrink easily – they’re worse than wool.’
Mr Bakhtari said that he feels like Anthony is one of the family.
He said: ‘We’ve grown with him. He’s part of the family.
‘My family and kids are here. My mother is here sometimes.
‘He knows her. He’ll walk up to the counter and bows and says hello. He doesn’t have to do that.
Felled hero Wladimir Klitschko, 41, was spotted leaving Roka Restaurant today in Fitzrovia, London, wirh his fiance
‘Respect is drummed into him. We see him as if he’s one of our family members. He’s a friend not a client.
‘He really has a heart of gold.’
Muqeem said £120 is about two weeks worth of washing if you being a bag in every day – which when he’s training Anthony does.
He said: ‘We’ll see more of his suits and shirts now he’s out the gym.
‘I’m absolutely over the moon for him.’
‘But I could do with the money now so hopefully he comes in and pays it off as soon as possible.’
Mr Bakhtari added fame and fortune had not appeared to have changed the gentle 6ft 6ins giant.
‘We have known him since before he was Olympic champion, about seven or eight years, and he is the nicest guy around town. Nothing has changed.
‘For somebody to knock him out will be difficult because he’s got a heart of gold.
‘His stardom comes because of his humbleness.
‘He is so humble I actually go out of my way to serve him and help him out.’
ANTHONY JOSHUA: THE BIG BRAND MAN
Anthony Joshua already has numerous lucrative contracts to represent various brands.
He is CEO of his own company and is a brand ambassador for Jaguar Landrover, which last week gave him a unique £150,000 Range Rover SVAutobiography.
He is also the poster boy for Under Armour, the sports brand of the moment, appearing on billboards all over the world.
Joshua also advertises Apple’s Beats By Dre headphones and is linked to a number of other companies, including Lucozade and Sky Sports.
According to Mr Bakhtari, who said they also measure up Joshua for his clothes and wash his training gear, Joshua used to grill him on how to be successful in business.
‘I remember when he was young, him going ‘what do I have to do to make money’. He used to come to me to ask me about business.
‘The thing is then he was a bit quieter, now he’s a bit louder. Everything that comes out of his mouth is words of respect.’
Recalling a funny moment with Joshua in his launderette, Mr Bakhtari said: ‘There was an old lady sitting waiting for her washing when Anthony was in. A few kids came in and asked for his autograph.
‘The old lady looked at him and said: ‘Are you a basketball player?’ He replied: ‘No I’m a boxer’.
‘When he left, I told her: ‘That’s Anthony Joshua – the heavyweight champion!’
‘She got up and said she knows that name and her grandchildren always talk about him. She legged it out of the shop and chased him down the street and he stopped to sign an autograph for her.’
Mr Bakhtari revealed Joshua is looking to buy a new home after his latest fight, saying: ‘He was looking into buying a property. Wherever he goes, he will hopefully still use us.’
Meanwhile, Joshua said his son ‘loves my shiner’ as he was re-united with 18-month-old JJ after months of gruelling training and an even tougher fight.
The boxer’s mother Yeta Odusanya was today seen returning JJ to the ex-council house in north London where Joshua still lives with her.
After the bout against Klitschko that that won him both a £15million purse and a fearsome black eye, the humble father spent the day with his mother and JJ.
He has now vowed to become the richest boxer ever, overshadowing Floyd Mayweather’s £540million fortune, after becoming a household name overnight.
The father-of-one still lives with Yeta and their dog Roxy in a former council flat in North London, which he bought for her for £174,000 after turning professional in 2013
Joshua said he hoped to become a millionaire when he first started boxing, but he now hopes to become boxing’s first billionaire.
His promoter, Eddie Hearne, said that Joshua will become bigger than David Beckham, with huge public appeal that goes beyond boxing.
‘His commercial potential outside the ring is huge, way beyond Beckham and the world’s top footballers. He has a much bigger cross-over in terms of potential,’ he said.
The 27-year-old boxer spent yesterday reconnecting with his mother Yeta Odusanya, 51, and his 𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚢 son after several gruelling months of training away.
Speaking following Saturday night’s showdown at Wembley in front of 90,000 people, Joshua admitted his mother had said she was proud of his triumph.
She 𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚢sat during the fight and was seen bringing the 18-month-old home to see his father today.
After first winning his world title, Joshua shared an image of his son and said he was looking forward to spending some time with him
The father-of-one still lives with Yeta and their dog Roxy in a former council flat in north London, which he bought her for £174,000 after turning professional in 2013.
Discussing speaking to his mother prior to the fight, Joshua said: ‘We spoke on Facetime and she said she was proud of me.’
Then for the benefit of the assembled media he played a tape of her shouting ‘Wow’ and putting on his son JJ to gurgle down the phone.
For the past decade, Joshua has been in an on/off relationship with he mother of his child, former school friend Nicole Osbourne, who he bought a £500,000 flat not far from his home.
Though the 6ft 6in and 17 stone star is currently single, there is however one woman that will come before any others – his mother.
Joshua said his mother, pictured today, spoke to her on the phone and said she was proud of him after the fight
He has previously credited the close-relationship with Mrs Odusanya as being key to his rapid rise from amateur to becoming a boxing superstar – having now claimed the WBA, IBF, and IBO heavyweight titles.
But he is so fiercely protective that since winning Olympic gold at London 2012 he has not let her watch his fights be it live or even on TV.
Yesterday however he conceded: ‘Since all the gang were together I reckon that mum watched it with them on the TV.
‘If so then she will have seen why I didn’t want her there. This is a pretty brutal sport.’
Mrs Odusanya was spotted leaving their flat yesterday looking mightily relieved her son had survived the epic bout.
Asked if she was proud of him, she simply gave a double thumbs up and a big grin before climbing into the £80,000 white Range Rover he had bought her.
Despite earning roughly £15million for the fight, Joshua told a press conference that all he wanted to do following the fight was to go back to ‘normal living’ by having a lie-in and eating some of his mother’s home-made cooking.
Asked what his plans were for Sunday at the post-match press conference, he told reporters: ‘I’m a good man, I’m a family man, and I love life.
‘How do I plan to celebrate? Wake up midday for once. Wake up midday and then catch up with my family
‘Normally I take a holiday, but I think this time what I’m going to do is just pop round to some of my family’s house and catch up.
‘Because we spend quarter of the year training, and then normally you go on holiday and then straight back into training camp. I don’t want to do that, I want to catch up with family. And that’s it. Go back to normal living.’
One of four children, Joshua grew up on the Meridean Estate in Watford and left school aged 16 after falling in with the wrong crowd.
Joshua is so fiercely protective that since winning Olympic gold at London 2012 he has not let her watch his fights be it live or even on TV
Former champion Klitschko didn’t make it easy for him, coming back strong in the fifth and sixth rounds, at which point it looked all but over for Joshua
After falling in with a bad crowd, he quit school aged 16 and two years later he was a jobbing bricklayer devoting weekends to drinking and going out clubbing.
But it was aged 18 that he became ‘hooked’ on boxing at Finchley Boxing Club which later led him to clearing up his act and winning Olympic gold at London 2012.
In October 2015, his then girlfriend Nicole Osbourne, who works as a dance teacher and appears in pole-dancing videos on YouTube, gave birth to their son Joseph.
Living just two miles away, he visits regularly when he is living at home with his devoted mother.
A bruised looking Joshua laughs joyfully having secured another of the alphabet titles to add to his arsenal. Brash American Deontay Wilder and New Zealand slugger Joseph Parker hold the others
Following a fight last year, he said: ‘I’ll take the belt home and she’s proud, but I want to keep our mother-son relationship on a level and not be like she favours me as her son because I’m world champion.’
Last week, Mrs Odusanya said: ‘We’re very close, we always have been from day one, he’s my only son.
‘We live together and he’s always looking out for me. I still can’t watch his fights, I get really nervous and I do worry about him.’
Joshua, who has two sisters and a brother, has previously told how he did not want his fame and success to jeopardise his relationship with his mother.
Following a fight last year, he said: ‘I’ll take the belt home and she’s proud, but I want to keep our mother-son relationship on a level and not be like she favours me as her son because I’m world champion.’
Wladimir Klitschko and fiancee Hayden Panettiere seemed in positive spirits despite the loss. Klitschko took time to sign autographs after leaving the Japanese restaurant in Fitzrovia
Klitschko and Panettiere met at a book launch party for mutual friend in 2009 – and quickly began dating. They have a three-year-old daughter together called Kaya
The grounded boxer has told previously how he still helps her with chores around the house. In an interview, he said: ‘I’ll still do that, buying the milk, eggs, anything like that.’
He added: ‘The only thing I ask mum to help me with is my food, so she does most of the shopping, gets the fish, meat and chickens and stuff. But I do more than my fair share when I’m at home.’
In another interview with the London Evening Standard last year, he said: ‘I still live at home. Mum’s cooking is amazing and it is great to have my family so close.
‘Mum is used to the way I have to train now so she makes amazing food to help me recharge and prepare for fights.’
